Mall Cop
by argent-snow
Summary: In which an MX is sent out as part of an elaborate sting operation at a mall. Or on why an MX should never go undercover. Crackfic. Genfic.


**Title: **Mall Cop

**Pairing: **Genfic, Friendship!MX-43/OFC, If there is something, it's so implied you gotta squint

**Tags: **So crackfic it hurts, Asexual!OFC, enough fluff to rot your teeth out, pointless fluff for the lolz, what am I doing, I need to stop

**Author's Note:** Don't own Almost Human or Great American Cookies and Victoria's Secret, in which two imaginary stores in this fanfic share a vague relation to, or any allusion to recognizable media. I thank my readers from my other AH fanfics and apologize for the delay in updating - in three days, I will upload the prequel to 'ghost in the shell' since Chapter 2 is taking a while.

All you need to know for this fanfic is that the central MX character has the appearance of the first one we see in the Pilot Episode (dude, I feel so sorry for him he gets blown up all the time), but because he's going undercover (with the help of a holographic device like the face-changer in Episode 3), his irises are going to be brown and more human looking (I swear there's a black ring circling around his pupils or something), and the bumps/band-aid thingies on his cheekbones and data ports on his temple and forehead are hidden a la plot device/face-changer. Other than that, he looks pretty much the same.

How do the baddies not recognize him as an MX? All I'm gonna say is check out Anthony Konechny's Twitter, and if you're like me, it will be very surreal to see him smiling (minus the helmet) and I totally wouldn't have recognized him if I didn't know he was the actor for MX-43 '1'. Seriously. o_0

By the way, this is a wannabe crackfic. You have been warned. 8D

* * *

**Part I: First Impressions**

** ...**

There was a new mall cop patrolling around her place.

She was pretty sure he hated her guts – and everyone else's.

Alexis didn't take the job at Auntie's Cookiez to make friends or something like that. It was a purely convenient setup – the job was relatively simple, since it was one of the branch food stalls set in the middle of the first floor, and she didn't need to worry about baking cookies or brownies like the workers in the main store on the second floor did. It paid well enough for her to scrape by without touching the money her parents left behind too often, and the mall was close to her community college and Aaron's elementary school. Additional pluses came in the form of her manager, who graciously allowed Aaron to be in the stall with her during her shift, as long as he didn't nab any cookies or caused a ruckus. The latter she carefully avoided by using her employee freebie and giving her giddy brother his choice of dessert for the day.

In fact, it was her brother who pointed him out first.

It had been on a slow day, being a weekday, and virtually all the customers were adults or elderly people, who had no interest in indulging their sweet tooth. It was slow enough that Alexis took out her schoolwork to study, placing her tablet on the table behind the counter and opening the trigonometry e-book. Aaron was doing his own homework beside her, although from the absence of tapping sounds against his own tablet, Alexis guessed that he was taking a short break. She let him be, resolving to nudge him back to work if he lounged any longer than ten minutes.

A couple minutes passed before his voice drew her out of her thoughts.

"Hey, Sis?"

The dark-skinned woman tore her eyes from the screen. "Hmm? What is it?"

Her brother pointed to someone, and her eyes followed the direction of his index finger, stopping at a man in white and black uniform. A mall cop, she realized, one she didn't recognize. He was staring at a group of girls and boys near the entrance of the movie theater – high-schoolers, Alexis guessed – with an inscrutable look on his face.

"He looks like he wants to eat their livers," Aaron said bluntly.

Had it been a weekend, and the mall filled with more milling people and conversations, Aaron's comment would have slid past without the subject being any the wiser. But it wasn't, and the first floor was spacious, and so Aaron's unrestrained, youthful voice bounced freely around.

Echoing very loudly.

The recipient of the statement snapped his head around, brown eyes zoning in onto Aaron, who still had his finger raised.

A strangled noise escaped from her throat. Alexis reached over and quickly yanked his hand back down, ignoring his protests ("What? He _really _does look like –"). She shushed him under his breath, and warily glanced back up, lips stretched out into an apologetic half-grimace, half-smile.

The mall cop stared flatly back at her, his expression never budging in the slightest. It only lasted a couple seconds, but that moment was the most terrifying thing she ever experienced in such a brief time, and a voice in the back of her mind faintly agreed with Aaron's observation.

Perhaps he didn't want to eat her liver, but she sure as heck wouldn't come to him for help if she needed it.

He finally turned away from them, his attention directed back on the high school students. Alexis relaxed, releasing the breath she didn't realize she was holding.

"I told you he looked scary," Aaron muttered sullenly.

She exhaled deeply and turned around. Alexis placed both of her hands on his shoulders and bent down so that they were at eye-level.

"Remember what Mom said about not judging a book by its cover?" she whispered.

The fact that Alexis was speaking in an undertone flew over his head. "Yeah, but –" Alexis shushed him, and Aaron lowered his voice. "But you were scared too. He was just looking at the people over there with that – that face."

"I know Aaron, but you got to _lower your voice_ if you're going to say something like that, okay? I rather you not say something like that at all, but if you're gonna, _keep it down_. He heard you."

"So what? He didn't do anything," Aaron said stubbornly.

Alexis gave him a pointed look.

The boy sighed. "Okay, okay, you're right," he grumbled. The authenticity of his statement was dubious, but the point of her statement seemed to have made its mark on him, so Alexis withdrew, satisfied that this incident wasn't occurring again. She knew she should probably pursue the subject and harp on him about 'don't judge someone you don't know' like her parents would have wanted her to, but in this case, Alexis thought it was understandable.

She would have been lying if she said she wasn't the least bit intimidated by the mall cop.

Alexis patted his back. "Go finish your homework."

Aaron groaned loudly and turned back to his tablet. Alexis hid her smile and looked around. Seeing that there were still no interested customers, she returned to her own homework too.

The silence lasted exactly five minutes before Aaron spoke again.

"Sis?"

She sighed and turned off her tablet. "Yes?"

"Why was he looking at them like that?"

She considered saying 'I don't know, I'm not him' to effectively end the conversation, but the question made her curious too. She lifted her eyes, peering inconspicuously at the mall cop. The high school students were gone, probably inside watching a movie. The man's attention was now on the store to her left, ahead of the cookie stall.

The store, called _Hawte Fashion, _sold miscellaneous clothing, undergarments, and accessories for the young adult demographic. She supposed that their products were okay for something so ridiculously overpriced, if what her friend Michelle told her was true. But the holographic panels flickering behind the store's windows were a bit…revealing. The male and female models were scantily clad, and it wasn't unusual to see nearby employees from other stalls, customers, and mall cops gaze a little too long at the advertisements. Fortunately, she covered this problem for Aaron by having him face the right side, although she wasn't too concerned about it. Aaron was more interested in the game store across from him than the one behind his back.

In the man's case though, Alexis wasn't quite sure. The normal assumption would be that he was interested in a person inside the store, or the ones displayed behind the windows. But his expression was too, well…stoic. When he did look at the displays, it almost seemed as if he was staring straight through them. His eyes would occasionally waver to the customers exiting the store, but for the most part, whatever it was that had captured his attention, it was inside the store.

She glanced at her brother. "I'm pretty sure the people he was looking at were high school students. I recognize some of them from one of my classes."

A flicker of recognition crossed his face. "Oh, the dual credit students?" He paused, looking annoyed. "Were they the same ones that ran out into the road to catch a football and you almost hit them?"

She ruffled his hair. "Nah. If they were, I would have punched those little suckers for not being more careful."

Aaron swatted half-heartedly at her hand. "Stop messing my hair. I worked hard on it."

"Whatever. You spent only five minutes," she teased, but withdrew her hand.

Aaron stuck out his tongue at her. "So they were high school students. What's wrong with that?"

"They gotta stay in school. If not, they'll get in trouble. High school is still in session right now, but I think they're here because their college classes ended early. I'm pretty sure they're an exception to the rule, but I don't know."

"Oh." Aaron looked thoughtful. "But he doesn't know that they're dual credit, right? Why didn't he stop them?"

Alexis paused at that. That was a good point, actually. Why _had _he been staring at them like he was going to bust them any second, but didn't do so anyway?

"I don't know," she said honestly. "But that's a good question."

"Maybe you should ask him," Aaron suggested slyly.

She rolled her eyes and lightly pushed her brother. "Enough about him. You'll never finish your homework if you sit here yapping like Aunt Jackie."

Her brother looked alarmed at the comparison and immediately turned back to work. He raised his stylus, but the tip hovered a couple centimeters over the screen.

Seeing this, Alexis asked exasperatedly, "What is it now?"

"He scares me," her brother said bluntly. "Am I going to be seeing him every day now?"

Seeing where this was headed, a weary look crossed her face. "Aaron, deal with it. He's not bothering you or anything, so you're fine." A pause. "Maybe he's just having a bad day," Alexis tried to reason, but uncertainty crept into her tone.

Aaron snorted. "Yeah right."

* * *

Aaron was right.

Apparently, every day was a bad day for the mall cop. She was beginning to think he was born with a permanent frown.

In the following days, 'Mr. Sour-Face,' as Aaron had dubbed him, became a regular fixture during her shift – along with his grim expression. Alexis had given up trying to stop Aaron from using the nickname. Her brother found it as an amusing way to cope with his fear of the mall cop, and no amount of lecturing or dissuading him could stop it.

While she was exasperated with the whole situation, she found it sort of hilarious when Aaron would sneak glances over the counter and stare at the mall cop, warily charting his position. The blond man seemed unaware of it, his gaze wandering around the spacious hall and skimming through the faces of the customers, never lingering too long unless one of them was a trouble-maker. She noticed however, he was particularly interested in _Hawte Fashion_. It wasn't painfully obvious, he shifted his eyes to other places as well, but Alexis felt that he kept his attention on the left side a lot more than the right. Even if he wasn't directly looking at the store, his face was angled in a way that the store would be in his peripheral version.

It was all very, very strange. And she seemed to be the only one that noticed it.

The good thing was, the customers were equally intimidated by him like Aaron was. Well, it was sort of a bad thing too, since the Birch Bridge mall was apparently oblivious to the effect of hiring an unfriendly-looking face. But it was also a good thing, since it meant that the customers who had questions or needed help would come to her first – Alexis, being the far less ominous alternative to the grim mall cop some yards away – and she would subtly employ her skills and direct their attention to the snacks she was selling. Needless to say, she sold a little more cookies and brownies than she probably would have if the mall cop effectively scared them off.

Alexis knew that she should probably talk to him, or at least say 'hi.' He had been here for a week already, and seeing him every day, Alexis figured that it was impolite of her to ignore him for so long. But talking to him would require her to step out of her stall and walk up to him, or to call him over here – and the latter was definitely not an option, seeing how leery Aaron was of him.

She knew she should do _something_, perhaps engage in friendly conversation and hope in the slim chance that the man was not as dour as he looked on the outside. Her parents, if they were still alive, would scold her hypocrisy for judging the man by his face, but she couldn't help it. The mall cop showed no indication of a friendly manner, nor did his expression ever shift to channel one. Frankly, he intimidated her, and so Alexis put off her resolution to talk to the man the next day, and the next.

Her friend from the upstairs Auntie's Cookiez, Michelle, thought otherwise.

It was Saturday, so the cookies and brownies were selling out faster than normal. Alexis was harried from the busy day and wanted nothing more than to enjoy her weekend with Aaron instead of working. She brightened slightly when looked over to her right and saw a familiar face. Alexis waved to the approaching Korean woman, who was wheeling a cart with several trays on it.

"Fresh out of the oven!" the brown-haired woman sang out. Alexis grinned weakly at her purposely off-tune voice.

"You're a sight for sore eyes. I was beginning to be all by my lonesome with this kid over here." She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder, where Aaron was sitting. Alexis was oblivious to the face her brother pulled at her.

Michelle laughed, wheeling the cart into the stall. "Hey little man, how's it going? Did your Big Sis already give you her freebie?"

Aaron's shoulders slumped, his eyes gazing hungrily at the still steaming pastries. "Yes," he mumbled.

The woman grinned. "Well, I haven't used mine yet, so you can take it."

The dark-skinned boy cheered and thanked her, before hastily grabbing a Red Velvet brownie with a napkin. Michelle came over to where Alexis was leaning heavily against the counter.

"How's your day, girl? You look pretty tired," Michelle said, settling beside the other woman.

Alexis grunted. "Same old, same old. You?"

Michelle huffed. "Not as well off as you! You're working downstairs here where all the hotties are at." She lifted her head, glancing toward the entrance of the movie theatre, where there were numerous college-age students grouped at. "Look, there's a hunk over there. He's pretty cool, isn't he?"

Alexis lifted her head slowly, as if she were carrying a great weight. She glanced cursorily at the crowd, not really seeing who Michelle was pointing out, but didn't ask for an elaboration. "I guess. I don't know."

Michelle scowled. "Fine, I'll find someone hotter." She started looking around before Alexis could stop her and explain that _no_, she just wasn't attracted by a person's physical attributes at all. Period. She could recognize when a person was considered beautiful or handsome by today's aesthetic standards, but beyond that, she felt nothing. But then that would start another conversation that Alexis wasn't too keen on broaching, so she decided to keep silent. Resigned and slightly amused, wondering who her friend was going to point out, Alexis picked up her cup and started sipping her iced, sweet tea.

After several moments, Michelle finally found her victim. "There! That guy's kind of cute!"

Alexis followed her line of sight and promptly spit out her tea. Her brother screeched indignantly when some of it flew into him.

Michelle was pointing at the mall cop.

"Oh my – are you alright?" her friend took some napkins, quickly throwing some over to Aaron, and handed the rest to Alexis.

Alexis took the napkins, raising a placating hand. "Urgh, I'm fine. Thanks. You just…_really _surprised me there."

She grinned mischievously. "Why? Were you surprised at how hot he was?"

Alexis stared blankly at her friend, and then exchanged a look with her brother. The two siblings glanced at the mall cop in question who was – surprise, surprise – glaring at a _Hawte Fashion's _holographic model making a 'come-hither' expression at passing customers. His expression could only be described as upgraded from _I'm-going-to-eat-your-liver _to the lofty level of _I'm-going-to-rip-your-liver-out-with-my-bare-hands-and-eat-it_.

Michelle looked on in bemusement when the siblings looked back at each other and shuddered simultaneously.

"He's still scary," Aaron whispered.

"I'm such a horrible person," Alexis bemoaned, dropping her face into her hands. "How hard can it be to say hi?"

It took a while, but Michelle finally got the story out of them.

"Aaron, it's not nice to call someone Mr. Sour-Face," Michelle scolded.

The boy gave her an incredulous look. He was beginning to wonder if they were talking about the same person. "Have you _seen _his face?"

"I have, and I think it's nice! Well, maybe not nice in the friendly sense, but he's cute-looking. He just needs to lighten up a bit," Michelle amended. She turned to the long-suffering Alexis. "And you, you gotta go talk with him! It's been a week and you're just ignoring him. That's not friendly at all!"

"I – but he looks so –" Alexis tried.

"Nuh uh, no but's," Michelle said sternly. "You think he's scary looking, but you're not exactly doing anything to make yourself look friendly, are you?"

"But –"

"Alexis." She gave the other woman a pointed look.

Alexis sighed. "Fine. I'll say hi. I'll do it on Wednesday."

Michelle beamed at her. "That's the spirit! I'm gonna come down again later and make sure you actually follow through! I expect you guys to be buddies by then!"

Aaron looked horrified. Alexis just closed her eyes.

* * *

Alexis regretted making that promise to Michelle.

Now with that heavy burden hanging over her head, the woman became hyper-sensitive of the mall cop's presence and his strange fascination with _Hawte Fashion_. She began to notice that the man rarely ever talked, and when he did, it was only when a fellow mall cop on a moped came rolling by. Even then the conversations lasted at least a minute, and the man would look totally unimpressed with his colleague on the moped. No one else bothered to talk with him – not any of the employees from nearby shops and stalls, not the preppy young adults that manned the concession and ticket stands at the movie theatre. Customers avoided him, and although younger, innocently trusting children seemed to be curious and impervious to his stone face, their parents would quickly pull them along before they could initiate a conversation. Alexis was beginning to think she was the only idiot that thought it was impolite not to talk with him, and the only doormat that allowed her friend to pull her into this ridiculous scheme in the first place.

Heck, why didn't _Michelle _talk to him instead, if she insisted so much for Alexis to do so? The woman suspected that her friend was actually secretly intimidated by the man too and only pushed for her to talk to him because she was too scared to do it herself. A sort of dare, if you will. If that was the case, Alexis would have considered the promise null and void, but she had also told herself that she would talk to the guy someday. Acceding to Michelle's ultimatum was just insurance. Better now than later.

The anxiety roiling in her stomach steadily grew as the days passed. She tried her best to ignore the impending engagement, but it was hard to do so with her little brother voicing out his displeasure every hour.

"I bet he's a jerk," Aaron would say. "He looks like one of those stuck up, high school jocks."

"How do you even know what a high school jock looks like if you're only in fifth grade?" she would point out.

"I dunno. I see them in the movies," Aaron would defensively say, to which she would roll her eyes.

On other times, Aaron would try to divine the reason behind the mall cop's stern face.

"My friend Steve tells me that mall cops were guys that failed the police academy," Aaron told her one time. "That's why he looks so pissed every day. This isn't the job he really wants."

"Hmm, I guess your friend Steve is an expert on all things police-related, huh?" Alexis had replied dryly. Her sarcasm had completely flew over his head, and Aaron continued on that tangent for another fifteen minutes, until Alexis put her feet down and made him focus on his schoolwork – and when he was done with that, one of those random, free games on the app store.

It got blissfully silent after that. But still, her nervousness continued to grow and stew, despite the unconcerned façade she wore.

Then finally, Wednesday came to pass.

And the mall cop was nowhere to be found.

When she first came to her shift and didn't see him, she assumed that he was taking a restroom or snack break. But then the minutes turned to an hour, and she realized that he was most likely not showing up. Aaron, who had walked into the mall with set, tense shoulders like he was preparing to face a hurricane, relaxed and brightened when he saw that the man was not here today.

The revelation should have comforted her. She should have been happy.

Instead, it made her worried.

Her juxtaposing emotions annoyed her. Alexis was pretty sure her worry was directed to the mall cop – because she, for some inane reason, suspected that there was something wrong with him. He didn't seem like the type of person to easily come down with sickness, nor did he look like the kind of person to slack his job off. Or maybe he just got tired of the job and left it.

Alexis had the strange urge to ask one of the passing mall cops about it, but managed to subdue it. It was stupid. He had terrified her and Aaron for more than a week without ever interacting with them, and she didn't even know the guy. Yet, she felt enough of _something _to be concerned for him.

It was a slow day once more, and knowing that she would agonize herself with the matter in the ensuing silence, Alexis threw herself into her schoolwork and tutored Aaron on math. The latter proved to be more troublesome than she thought.

Alexis stared down at the math problems flickering on Aaron's tablet. "What the heck is this? You're in fifth grade, right?"

Aaron rolled his eyes. "No Sis, I'm in eighth grade," he said sarcastically.

"This doesn't look like the stuff I learned in fifth grade." Alexis glanced at the topic again. "_Division?_ They taught us an easier way back then. What's with all this complicated crap?"

"Well, that's what my teacher is teaching me."

Alexis pulled over her tablet and opened a blank page. "Look man, I'm going to teach you an easier way. I dunno why they're changing everything when the old way is perfectly fine –"

Aaron pulled his own tablet away, encircling it protectively with his arms. "Nuh uh. This is what the teacher said we should do," he said petulantly. "I don't wanna learn your way."

"Aaron, the teacher isn't always –"

"Nope."

"_Aaron. _There's lots of ways –"

"_No._ Go back to your own stuff!"

She exhaled, hissing in frustration. "Fine. Go finish your homework and I'll check it later to see if it's right."

Aaron stuck out his tongue at her. Alexis took it all in stride (although she secretly wanted to wring his little neck – _little brothers_) and focused on her own work.

Ten minutes later, a couple with young twins walked up. Feeling slightly relieved for the change in pace, she slid open the panel behind the display case and started picking up the brownies they pointed out. One of the twins asked for her opinion, and she was about to answer when a new voice sounded out from behind.

"The correct answer is 625.08."

Alexis jerked, wincing when her head hit the top of the display. The twins giggled when she rubbed her head, a grimace on her face. "Holy –" she bit back the swear word before it could leave her lips, and turned around.

It was the mall cop.

It was the mall cop, and he was very, _very _tall. He didn't look _that _tall when he was over in his own spot, Alexis thought, aghast. His shadow actually fell over Aaron as he leaned slightly over the top of the display case to look at Aaron's tablet. His expression was stony as ever. Her brother, who was using the counter behind the case as a table, stared back up at the man, looking absolutely terrified.

Alexis turned back to the family and threw in the rest of the brownies. As soon as they finished paying and left, Alexis spun around to go to rescue her brother. But what she saw made her freeze in surprise.

The man had taken Aaron's stylus and was now reaching over the case to write on the screen. Her little brother wasn't even looking at what he wrote – he just stared up at the man with wide eyes. She suspected that the mall cop had mistaken Aaron's catatonic state as permission for him to help.

His inflectionless voice broke Alexis from her trance. "You erred in your calculations at this part here." He indicated something with the point of the stylus, presumably at Aaron's work. "I recommend that you utilize my method. It is less time-consuming."

Her little brother stared blankly at him. A strange noise gurgled in his throat.

The man tilted his head slightly, conveying a sort of puzzlement even though his countenance never changed. "That is not a word in any dictionary."

A small voice in the back of her mind wondered why he sounded vaguely familiar, even though this was the first time she heard him speak. But a more important question overrode that thought – what was he doing here? It wasn't a random social drop-in, that's for certain.

"Hey there! Do you need something?" Alexis winced when her voice cracked nervously.

His brown eyes lifted to the approaching woman. He held out the stylus to Aaron, who snapped out of his daze several seconds later and hesitantly took it back.

"If it is not much trouble, I would like to borrow some of your money," he told her. "My charge is hungry."

"Your charge," she repeated dumbly. His eyes flickered down to his left side, and Alexis followed his gaze. A four year old, Asian girl stared back up at her.

"_I want cookie_," the girl said in Vietnamese. Alexis smiled, eyes brightening in recognition.

"She wants a cookie," the mall cop translated, not realizing that Alexis could understand the girl. He turned back to the child. "_Which cookie do you want_?"

The girl's face scrunched up. "_You speak funny,_" she accused. "_Northerners are weird._"

The man blinked at that, but was saved from having to reply when the woman let out a bark of laughter.

"_That's not nice to say,_" Alexis said. She spoke in the same accent as the girl. "_He's just trying to help you. What kind of cookie do you like?"_

"_Double chocolate,_" she declared, pointing to the tray in the back of the glass display. "_You can speak,_" the girl added in awe.

Alexis grinned wryly at the familiar reaction. "_Yeah, my mom was half-Viet._" She glanced back up at the mall cop, who had been silently observing their interaction. "Let me guess. Lost girl, she came to you for help, couldn't find her parents, so now you're taking care of her?"

"Affirmative. Except I found her in the outlet store without her guardian."

His strangely-worded statement caught her attention, but she didn't comment on it. "Who forgets their kid at a mall?"

"From what she has told me, she had a babysitter, who was also preoccupied with several other children. I have already contacted her parents. They will be picking her up shortly."

"Huh. Guess they're not hiring that person again." Alexis smiled at the girl. "_What's your name? You want to come inside here and wait for your parents?_"

The child bounced excitedly. "_Yes! Yes! My name is Hong_," she added as an afterthought.

"_Alright, you can come around here and –_" Alexis broke off when the man suddenly bent down and effortlessly picked up the girl. "That works too," she said weakly, grunting when he passed Hong over the case onto her. Aaron quickly grabbed another chair and slid it over for the girl. She set Hong onto the chair and turned to the display case to retrieve a cookie. "Aaron, go ahead and download that one game onto my tablet and give it to her," she threw over her shoulder as she opened the panel.

"I apologize for the inconvenience," his voice said above her. "I will be able to reimburse you tomorrow."

"Nah, don't worry about it." She grabbed two cookies and stood back up, closing the panel. Hong squealed giddily when she handed it over to her. Alexis scanned her Bitcoin at the cash register, before turning her attention back to the man. She smiled at him, and for some reason, his detached expression did not put her off. "I'd be a jerk if I made you pay for this. By the way, you speak pretty good Vietnamese. When did you learn it?"

The question seemed to have surprised him, because he didn't answer for several seconds. "I have known it for as long as I can remember," he said slowly.

Alexis had the feeling that he was keeping something from her, but didn't press it. "Oh, that's cool. So uh, when is she gonna get picked up?"

"In seventeen minutes, and twenty-three seconds."

The prompt, specific reply made her arch her eyebrows. "Wow, that's…" She struggled to find the right words, but gave up. "You'll be here until then?"

"Yes."

Well, there went any chance of her selling more snacks for the next seventeen minutes, and twenty-odd seconds. But Alexis thought it was worth it, especially since, she thought guiltily, the man didn't seem as bad as Aaron and her assumed he would be.

While they waited for Hong's guardians to show up, Aaron entertained the little girl and had a competition with her to see who could last the longest on _The Squirrel Race_, and Alexis hesitantly chatted with the man. Well, it was more of her doing the talking, and some of his replies had been really strange ("What's your favorite movie this year?" "General consensus among civilian populace indicates that _Star Wars 11 _is the most popular, although critics deride it.") Eventually, she realized that any personal question would be deflected with a vague non-answer, and so Alexis ended up rambling about random, innocuous topics that didn't directly touch on either of their personal lives. He didn't seem to mind, even inserting a comment here and there. In fact, she noticed that he looked more relaxed – his shoulders had been tense earlier when she asked him the generic, ice-breaking questions.

Alexis was no longer unnerved by his cold features. He was polite enough, although some of his blunt remarks could be mistaken as otherwise. He still had that peculiar interest in _Hawte Fashion_ – for the most part, he kept eye-contact with her, but she would catch him staring meditatively over her head several times.

Eventually, the girl's parents came to pick her up. Hong, despite her dislike for the man's Northern accent, thanked him for taking care of her and even gave his right leg a quick hug. Alexis managed to muffle her snickers when she saw him freeze at the contact. The parents also thanked him and Alexis, although they looked embarrassed when he deadpanned, "I would not recommend hiring that particular babysitter again."

When the family left them, an awkward silence ensued. Aaron pretended to be working on his homework, sneaking glances at his sister and the mall cop. Alexis was wringing her hands nervously, while the man unblinkingly stared down at her, head tilted slightly.

Seeing that the two of them would not be making a move anytime soon, Aaron purposely dropped his stylus onto the ground. The clattering noise broke the thick tension.

Alexis stirred first. "So, uh, I get off now. We're going for dinner." She fidgeted, looking like she was going to regret her next words. "Want to join us?"

His eyes flickered over her head. "I have my break now too," he finally said. "I see no problem with joining you."

She was surprised at this. "Really? I still see you over there when me and Aaron leave, though."

"I do not require dinner," he said plainly.

_Oh_, he was one of those people, she thought. "I heard about that. That one drink that gives you all the nutrients you need for one day, right?"

"It is a similar…diet." The last word was uttered hesitantly, as if he wasn't sure if that was the correct word.

"That's fine. So you don't mind watching us eat good food, right?" she grinned cheekily, putting away her stuff and gesturing at Aaron to do the same. Alexis could already see the next person on shift approaching them. "Wouldn't want to break you out of your diet, after all."

The joke passed over his head.

"Do not worry," he said solemnly. "That is not possible at all."

.

.

.

* * *

**Author's** **Note:** So apparently MXs are scary. I guess I missed the memo. 8D *gets shot*

I know, I know - what's my excuse for this monstrosity? Somewhere in the middle of editing the prequel to '_ghost in the shell' _I drowned myself with green tea frappucino with my friend, and we both observed a mall cop driving literal circles on his moped around this one employee in a Great American Cookie stall. We assumed he was new to the job (he fell off his moped), and we were giggling since it was so obvious the guy was flirting with her (we could hear the conversation, we're such bad eavesdroppers x_x ). Lo and behold, this insane idea popped into my head, and being high on green tea frappucino, I decided to churn out a crapcrackfic which was supposed to be a one-shot, but is now split into 2 parts.

It's okay guys. I'll become sane again and upload a serious!fic in three days, being the prequel to '_ghost in the shell'_ and my answer to whether an MX has a soul. 8D *gets shot* But yeah, the 2nd part to this will come after I upload that.

Random Trivia: Alexis is based off on my friend who had observed that spectacle with me. She has African American and Vietnamese roots, and she's totally awesome at speaking/reading/writing Vietnamese. We went to school together and she tutored me in Vietnamese (I was such a lazy child, lol), but gave up on teaching me how to read and write (she seriously had the patience of a saint). Unfortunately, she doesn't watch Almost Human (she gave me her blessings for Alexis though), but I still platonically love her anyway. xD

I don't know if this holds true for every Vietnamese person, but I have somehow adopted a Northern accent, and the rest of my Vietnamese-speaking friends have Southern accents, and they like to make fun of my accent. Apparently I sound weird to them...but they sound weird to me as well. Hence, why Hong thinks the MX speaks weird. Unfortunately, he was programmed with a Northern accent. x-)

This fanfic can also be found on Tumblr and AO3 (argent-snow and argent_snow, respectively) in case you've come across it before.


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